Facts & Figures

Let the figures speak for themselves.

A success story for consumer choice

European citizens are able to enjoy creativity in more ways and in better quality than ever before. We have moved from a standard definition, two dimensional world to one where we can receive and watch high definition and 3D content in our homes, on our devices and on the go.

Consumer choice is even broader when we add the large range of continuously changing offline choices, from cinema to reading print versions of a newspaper or magazine, indulging in your favourite songs on CDs or watching a DVD or Blu-ray, and reading a book cover to cover.

46 billion mobile apps were downloaded in 2012, taking the cumulative all-time total downloads since the applications were launched to 83 billion. Difficult to imagine as mobile apps only appeared five years ago.

But let the figures speak for themselves - did you know that:

1 Consumer choice:

91 million national, regional and local newspapers are sold each day in Europe

Online music services have increased by a factor of 10 and the available catalogue has grown a hundred fold. More music is available than ever before, and people are listening to more music than ever. If you were to listen to all the songs available online, it would take hundreds of years.

Europeans have access to more than 3,600 audiovisual online services.

Despite the economic crisis, 28 news channels have been launched since 2010. Almost 300 news channels are currently available in Europe, of which more than 170 are established in the European Union.

European readers can choose among 9 million book titles, 2.5 million of which are available in digital format.

20 million paying subscribers to streaming services, and over 4 billion songs downloaded from other licensed services.

Virtually all Science Technology and Medical journals are now available online. Researchers download almost 2.5 billion full text articles every year.

On average, more than 30,000 audiovisual programmes are made available to the French public at any given time.

At the end of 2011, there were almost 612 high-definition channels available in Europe, up from 414 in 2010.

2 A success story:

Creative industries: 95% micro firms – The creative industries in the EU are dominated by micro firms, with 95% having fewer than 10 employees.

56% growth rate from 2000-2010 – The audiovisual media services industry grew 56% in the EU between 2000 and 2010.

Books, magazines and e-learning materials are the third most purchased items online in the EU: 23% of online users in 2012

The world’s largest scientific publisher is European and serves a global community in harvesting scientists’ work for research and development

In 2011, over €3.5 billion was spent on discovering, developing and promoting music talent

360 million Europeans read magazines on a regular and consistent basis

On average, European watch 228 minutes of TV every day

3 Employment and growth:

The creative sector represents more than 7 million European employees, 3,2% of total European employment

26% of employment and 39% of GDP in the EU comes from Intellectual property-intensive industries, within which the copyright-intensive industries play an important part.

IP-intensive industries pay significantly higher wages than other industries, with a wage premium of more than 40%.

The annual investment of Europe’s largest commercial broadcasting groups into content comes to over €15 billion – which translates into €41 million per day.

Half a million work directly and indirectly in the book sector. The annual turnover of the European TV market is more than €84.4 billion

4 A digital business:

Globally, the music sector is 35% digital today

Ebooks now account for 15% of British book sales.

In 2011, weekly ebook downloads increased by more than 600%

More than half of tablet owners say they consume news on their tablets daily, and 30% say they spend more time with news than they did before purchasing the tablet.

In 2011, accessing news was the third most popular activity on a tablet.

The German news site, welt.de had about 7.66 million monthly visitors in 2011, compared to 3.27 million in 2009.

Consumer spending on online video increased by 100% in 2012 compared to 2011.